


Catching a Breath of Moonlight

by Neverever



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Coffee Shops, First Kiss, M/M, Romantic Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-09-24 16:35:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20361655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neverever/pseuds/Neverever
Summary: Tony lets it slip to Steve how he feels.





	Catching a Breath of Moonlight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lets_call_me_Lily](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lets_call_me_Lily/gifts).
  * Inspired by [To spend an evening with me](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17132249) by [Lets_call_me_Lily](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lets_call_me_Lily/pseuds/Lets_call_me_Lily). 

> Written as part of the Captain America and Iron Man Midyear Challenge for Lets_call_me_Lily. I hope you like it and that it's in the spirit of your very lovely art.
> 
> Thanks for to the beta for all the help.

Tony felt the late night quiet of the coffee shop.

Not an oppressive or unsettling quiet, just a comfortable end-of-the-evening quiet in a coffee shop that Steve and he had all to themselves. He shouldn’t order yet another cup of coffee, it’s that late at night, but Tony couldn’t help himself. He wasn’t ready to end his evening with Steve.

Steve sat across from him, glowing in the low light of the shop. Or maybe that part was just Tony. No reason that Steve would be the brightest thing around, given the rules of physics. Tony couldn’t help drinking in Steve’s glow, like a moth to the flame. 

Nice to have Steve all to himself for once. Free from the team, from the demands of the Avengers, from anyone. Just them in this quiet little coffee shop.

“Want another cup of coffee?” Steve asked. He seemed a touch anxious about Tony and coffee. “I’m getting one.”

“Sure. You know how I like it.”

Steve’s strong fingers flipped a sugar packet back and forth, the only sign that Steve was restlessly working through a problem. He hadn’t mentioned anything to Tony when he suggested that they take off for a movie or dinner or a long walk, anything that didn’t involve the team or the tower or Avengers business.

Tony should be back in the workshop, not walking through New York streets in an old hoodie he found in a corner of the workshop. He had thousands of things begging for his attention. He wanted to upgrade the software in the helmet. He’d promised Clint better arrows. Natasha wanted a better training program in the gym, and she’d rarely asked for anything. But he was fundamentally unable to say no to Steve. Especially if saying yes lead to hanging out with Steve alone. 

Something was on Steve’s mind, he could tell. Even after the couple of years working close together, Tony couldn’t read Steve well.

At Steve’s suggestion, they ended up at the coffee shop around the corner from the Tower, a tiny spot tucked between bigger stores, neither one wanting to call it a night. The shop with its bright colors, soft cushions on the seats, flowers on on the tables, and books in every nook and cranny beckoned to Tony. Bruce had found it first, and the rest of the Avengers soon followed. 

“I’ve been wanting to try the coffee here -- haven’t been able to find the time,” Steve said as they grabbed the table next to the window. 

Steve’s remarkable poor taste in coffee was notorious. He’d probably been drinking that sludgy lighter fluid SHIELD labeled coffee in their cafeteria. “You’re in for a treat,” Tony replied.

Coffee as promised was fresh, hot, and fantastic, the brownies fudgy and thick. The evening crowd came and went while Steve tortured sugar packets. Soon, all that was left was Steve and Tony lingering over their empty coffee cups and crumb-dotted plates.

If he could, Tony would stop time right then forever, to have these few moments when Steve was all his. He meant to ask Steve about staying long, to say something witty about coffee, to comment on the wallpaper. Instead, he said, “I love you.”

Steve paused his flipping of the sugar packet. He stopped breathing, his face shocked.

Shoot. Tony blew it. He shouldn’t have said that. Not that of all things in the world. And he couldn’t even fake that he meant that he loved something else. He steeled himself for the rejection.

It was Steve after all. The prom king of super-soldiers, the living legend that was enshrined in all the school books and at least ten different biographical films, the glue that held the Avengers together. Steve had better options than a damaged engineer.

Tony set his shoulders, sat up straighter. Steve had taught him that when they sparred, how to resist a blow. 

“Tony,” Steve breathed out. 

“Well, look at that -- close to 11 pm and they’ll be closing soon.” Tony pushed his phone towards Steve to show him the time.

“Tony, what did you say?”

“Eh, nothing -- my mind is somewhere else --”

“It wasn’t nothing. Not to me.” Steve reached for Tony’s hands. 

Tony sighed, tipped his head back so he could look at the ceiling, at anything that wasn’t Steve, and confessed. “I said ‘I love you’. Okay?”

“Did you mean that?”

“Considering that right now I’d prefer to gnaw my own arm off with my teeth than continue this conversation, yeah. I meant it.”

Tony sat there for eons in painful silence, not having a convenient excuse to escape the here and now. He just ruined a beautiful evening with Steve and now he’d never have the chance again. 

But Steve blessed him with a gorgeous smile instead. “Tony,” he said gently. “Come on, it’s just me, Steve.”

Never ‘just’ Steve. Always ‘Center-of-Tony’s-Universe’ Steve. “Right.”

Steve nudged Tony’s hand with his hand and leaned in closer. Tony could smell the aftershave, the one that Steve used for special occasions. And then he noticed that Steve was wearing a touch-too-tight designer t-shirt. His eyes flickered to the black leather biker jacket Steve had hung up by the door, the one that nearly blue-screened Tony’s mind when he first saw Steve in it. Tony had struggled to pay attention to whatever crisis Steve was talking about while he stared at the body-skimming jacket. 

He thought Steve hadn’t noticed.

Steve had noticed.

_Steve had planned this._

Down to the shower, shave, clothing and intimate little coffee shop conveniently around the corner from the Tower.

He had thought _Steve_ was the oblivious one. 

Tony was the one with the crush on Steve one could see from the moon and he’d given up long ago on Steve returning the crush. But here was Steve with a bright smile on his glowing face, all for Tony and Tony alone.

“Steve --” Tony took Steve’s hand in his, entangling their fingers together. 

“Yeah?”

“I meant it.”

Steve’s smile actually got brighter, as if that was a possibility. “Asking you out on date just got a lot easier.”

“Is that why --” Tony looked at the pile of sugar packets and the bent plastic fork and back at Steve. “This counts as a date, since I cut to the chase.”

Steve leaned in even closer, squeezing Tony’s hand. “Sure.” Tony closed his eyes. And Steve pressed a kiss to Tony’s nose. 

“Going to walk me home?” Tony asked. “Kiss me at my front door before saying good-night?”

“Part of the plan,” Steve promised.

They paid the bill and headed out into the night, under the few stars Tony could see in the New York night sky and the big bright moon.

Steve put his arm around Tony’s waist, drawing him close as they walked home. He kissed the top of Tony’s head. “I love you too.”


End file.
